1. Jonathan Franzen? There's a common reaction (especially on twitter) to Franzen which is basically "Franzen? Fuck that guy!" This is understandable but, I think, wrong. There's good reason for trying to engage with Franzen, even at his worst.
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4. In Franzen's case, he shows that there's a real hurdle that comes not just from Uncle Scrooge libertarians but a certain very attractive strain of American individualism, the Emersonian & Thoreauvian cherishing of small-scale democracy & conservation.
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5. Via E.B. White, genteel, small-town tree-hugging liberalism has always been a part of the New Yorker's DNA. Robert Warshow, reviewing a White book in 1947, provided a devastating critique.pic.twitter.com/GJHkuz4Y9r
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6. Franzen's brand of liberalism has diminishing appeal but it does persist among a certain strand of that upper-middle-class that has disproportionate cultural power, hence it needs to be argued with. As I try to do here: https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-change-jonathan-franzen/ …
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End of conversation
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"Dostoevsky is also an illustration of the power of great writing to convey radically unsound or even totally nonsensical ideas."https://thinkprogress.org/influential-books-4593d2f78fae/ …
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When do we get to Jack Kirkby?
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Muddled is a good term It covers a lot of people's thinking
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